Ditching Grandpa
BRENDA L. MURRAY
Ditching Grandpa
Copyright © 2013 Brenda L. Murray
paperback (ISBN 978-0-9735749-5-1)
ebook coming soon
Chapter One
Possibly the World’s Dumbest Question
When the bell rang that eventful September afternoon the doors of the school flung open not a moment later and we ran out of the building like escaped convicts. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the air was sweet with the possibility of play.
I flipped on my lucky baseball cap, flung my backpack over my shoulder and Calvin and I headed for the playing fields. It was the end of the first day of school. We had no homework. My backpack was filled with papers that needed signing and a colourful book club order form.
Just then Domitian, the new boy, a stocky twelve year-old with bangs hanging over his eyes, caught me in his cross-hairs. He was lurking in the shadows by the side doors of the school with his friends Leon and Beattie.
I heard a laugh and glanced up to see Domitian pointing at me.
“Hey, where’d ya get the dorky hat?” he shouted.
Beattie and Leon laughed along with Domitian.
Me? Was he talking to me? I looked behind me in the vain hope that someone with a dorkier hat than mine was standing there. No one stood behind me. This huge ape was definitely talking to me.
Charlie, the new girl, stood nearby on the paved area watching me. I felt like the whole school was watching me. I couldn’t just stand there and let them mock me. So I did something dumb: I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.
“If you don’t like it, don’t look at it,” I snapped.
I could see the smile curdle on Domitian’s face. He and his friends exchanged a glance.
“Let me show you how this is done, guys,” Domitian said under his breath to Leon and Beattie. “You gotta set an example at the beginning of the year. Show ’em who’s boss, you know?”
I was about to become the course material for Intro to School Bullying 101.
Breaking from his friends, Domitian swaggered toward me. He towered a head taller than me and weighed about forty pounds more. I felt sick. The blood drained out of my head. I thought I was going to faint.
“Jesse, are you crazy?” Calvin whispered to me. He was no help at all. “Do you know who you’re talking to? That’s Domitian ‘the Dome’ Robichaud. He’s the leader of the Demons. He got expelled from his old school.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“We’re friends and you’re telling me this now?”
Calvin shrugged apologetically.
I glanced back at Domitian and in a moment I could see that my fate was sealed. Domitian had Charlie in his sights. Suddenly a National Geographic documentary I’d seen about the mating ritual of the Big Horned Sheep popped into my mind. Charlie stood motionless, watching. Maybe she was impressed by this kind of thing. I couldn’t read the expression on her face. But there was no mistaking the look in Domitian’s eye.
“Wow, he’s big,” I noted.
“That’s ’cuz he flunked kindergarten and grade three.”
Calvin was a veritable encyclopedia of useful information.
Domitian stopped a few feet from me.
“Whad you say? Did you say something to me?”
Domitian glanced across at Charlie again to make sure she was watching. Several other students joined her. They stood watching us nervously.
I was committed now. So I repeated myself for this colossus who was possibly hard of hearing.
I swallowed hard. “Yeah,” I repeated with maybe a hint less conviction. “I said if you don’t like it, don’t look.”
“You got a big bloody mouth,” Domitian barked.
I didn’t even see the fist that hit me so hard it knocked me flat onto my back.
Domitian pushed his pimply face into mine.
“And now you got a big bloody nose to match,” he laughed.
I heard gasps and I think I heard a scream but I’m not sure. I felt stunned. Then a wave of pain washed over me and I felt for the blob of my nose. I looked at the blood on my hand and then past that at the bright blue sky. I could see a corner of the school roof. Students gathered around and looked down on me. Everything started to spin.
Kids from all over the playground swarmed around me like blackflies on a moose. Some kids were eager to see the spectacle.
I could hear their excited whispers, “Did he hit him? Is it really bleeding? Lemme see.”
New faces appeared; some with shining eyes and eager grins. They jostled for the best position. Other kids peeked at me quickly then disappeared. Obviously, my new look frightened them.
I rolled to one side and could see a cab pulling up to the curb near the school.
“I gotta go,” Domitian told me. “Next time watch your mouth.”
Beattie and Leon slapped Domitian on the back as he swaggered toward the cab.
Calvin helped me to my feet. My legs felt wobbly. I staggered toward the school.
“Are you alright? Are you alright?” Calvin kept asking.
This is possibly the world’s dumbest question. Why do people always ask you that when you’re so obviously not alright?
“No, I’m not alright,” I snapped as I pinched my nose to stop the flow of blood. “Is he gone?”
“Yeah, he’s gone.”
“Are ya sure he’s gone? Where’d he go?”
I glanced around in an effort to locate Domitian but my head was swimming and I couldn’t seem to focus. Also, there were so many kids crowding me that I couldn’t see over them.
“He took a cab home,” Calvin informed me.
“He took a cab? But we’re only in grade five!”
I could taste my own blood.
“Someone said he got kicked out of his old school and he has to take a taxi to our school ’cuz he’s out of district.”
I couldn’t think how Calvin came to be in the possession of this information. I had spent my day reviewing work from grade four. Calvin must have spent his day hanging out in the Teacher’s Lounge.
I leaned on Calvin’s shoulder for balance. Someone handed me my backpack and lunchbox.
“You gonna tell your Grandpa?” Calvin asked.
“No! What for? So he can come down here and embarrass me?”
“No, you’re right. You wouldn’t want people to stand around and stare at you,” he said sarcastically to the crowd of bystanders.
****
How was I to know, when I was only ten years-old, that that horrible event would become a life-changing moment for me? It was the first day of school, 1972. Looking back, everything that came before that moment is a blur. But from that day forward, everything was different.
End of Chapter One of
Ditching Grandpa